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Reading the article from the top, at the title, down to the last paragraph, felt a lot like Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football. 18 paragraphs of meandering p
by thaumaturgy 6y ago
Reading the article from the top, at the title, down to the last paragraph, felt a lot like Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football. 18 paragraphs of meandering prose just to end with, "Welp, who knows?"
- ojnabieoot 6y agoI mean... this piece is literary nonfiction, largely about the legacy of Holbein, and only incidentally about the actual mystery. It's a good piece! It's not a news article or a Wikipedia entry and not intended to distribute facts as effciently as possible. If you don't like literary nonfiction that is your prerogative (and I actually have a lot of sympathy). But I feel like you're being uncharitable and holding this author to the wrong standard. It's like reviewing a sonnet by saying "the rhyming is distracting."
- thaumaturgy 6y agoThat wasn't it at all and I appreciate literary nonfiction just fine. The author promised something at the very beginning that they didn't deliver by the end. Had the article instead started with, "I spent some covid time learning about Hans Holbein and his death", that would have been fine and I probably still would have read it, had it been posted here.